Back to The Troubles?

[dixiehack]

I suppose this could have gone on the Brexit, politics or even religion threads. But it feels like it deserves its own.

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-northern-ireland-56664868

It was likely that paramilitary organisations were involved and had planned the rioting, according to Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) Assistant Chief Constable Jonathan Roberts.

He said several hundred people on each side of a barrier separating the loyalist Shankill Road and the nationalist Springfield Road in west Belfast were involved and petrol bombs were thrown in both directions.

"Last night was at a scale we haven't seen in Belfast or further afield in Northern Ireland for a number of years," he said.

It’s weird to think back on watching the nightly news as a child of the 80s and thinking about how normalized the terrorism was. The last couple of years I’ve wondered if this isn’t what America is drifting towards, with politics replacing religion as the sectarian spark.

 

[2muchcoffeeman]

I am shocked to learn that the UDA and Ulster Volunteers started it. The UDA, which is more like organized crime than noble freedom fighters, has withdrawn its official support for the Good Friday agreement.

 

[Huggy]

My wife and I took a day trip to Northern Ireland when we were in Ireland in July, 2019. Included a fascinating black cab tour of Belfast, was amazing to walk the streets of a place I saw on TV back in the 1980s as one of the most dangerous cities on the planet.

 

[TigerVols]

Speaking of, there's a new police procedural recently dropped on Prime called Bloodlands about a murder investigation in Belfast and damn is it good; there's a twist about halfway through that's the most gut-punching I've seen on TV in ages.

 

[TheSportsPredictor]

Why would they destroy their own neighborhoods?

 

[I Should Coco]

I had a friend who worked overseas in Derry/Londonderry* in the 1990s, and he was shocked at how normalized the violence, and the evidence of the violence, was in that city. And he understood that the worst of it was well before he lived there.

* - it says a lot that they can't even agree on this city's name.

 

[Jake from State Farm]

I was on a cruise of the British Isles about 15 years ago and one of the stops was Belfast
We went down the streets where the graffiti still is on the houses
A guy I worked with who was from Boston told me he knew plenty of bars back in the day where there was a pot above the cash register for contributions to the IRA

 

[maumann]

I hope the legal and criminal response to our insurrection is enough to keep that from being a "trial balloon" for extremist groups to think we can return to the days of lynch mobs and vigilantes. Sadly, half of the elected officials who hold seats in Congress would be more than happy to see such violence continue (as long as their skins are safe).

 

[heyabbott]

I suppose this could have gone on the Brexit, politics or even religion threads. But it feels like it deserves its own.

Belfast: Rioting 'was worst seen in Northern Ireland in years'



It’s weird to think back on watching the nightly news as a child of the 80s and thinking about how normalized the terrorism was. The last couple of years I’ve wondered if this isn’t what America is drifting towards, with politics replacing religion as the sectarian spark.

the Rightwing terrorists in America are conflating religion and politics.
Where else would raging lunatics say that the unmitigated right to carry and own firearms is God Given? And it’s the same people, apparently ****tard is too offensive for the lowest form of human, who used the same religion to justify chattel slavery in America. Politics is religion and religion is political in the USA

 

[Starman]

Busting up the Good Friday accords was a not entirely unforeseen aftereffect of Brexit.

And not entirely unconnected with the right wing screech machine's pom pom shaking for secession in the USA.

 

[Neutral Corner]

It’s weird to think back on watching the nightly news as a child of the 80s and thinking about how normalized the terrorism was. The last couple of years I’ve wondered if this isn’t what America is drifting towards, with politics replacing religion as the sectarian spark.

All it would take is a couple of bombings or assassinations. If someone puts a bullet into Merrick Garland or Clarence Thomas and kills them, I can't help but think that a tit for tat response would be likely. Once that ball starts rolling there's no telling where it stops.

 

[qtlaw]

As an atheist, its with wonderment that I read about the history of the conflicts between Catholics and Protestants in Ireland/Northern Ireland. I literally channel Rodney King and say "can't you just get along?"

 

[LanceyHoward]

This is a great, great book on the "troubles".

Say Nothing: A True Story Of Murder and Memory In Northern Ireland

The problems of Northern Ireland, have declined sharply since the accords of the 90's, as well explained in the book. And I find it said that this progress may be shattered because of Brexit, which in my view was just nationalistic drum beating.

 

[Inky_Wretch]

I wonder how interconnected the global right-wing groups are with the IRA (or the other side).

 

[dixiehack]

I wonder how interconnected the global right-wing groups are with the IRA (or the other side).

I don’t think the Catholic side maps onto left wing-right wing politics as we understand them very well. But the Ulster Loyalists seem to be super cozy with the Torries throughout the years.

 

[Starman]

I wonder how interconnected the global right-wing groups are with the IRA (or the other side).

The other side mostly, although dixiehack correctly points out there's no direct linkage to most US lib/con issues. For instance there's bitter infighting among the supposedly staunch Catholic IRA/Sinn Fein factions over abortion.

 

[PCLoadLetter]

This is a great, great book on the "troubles".

Say Nothing: A True Story Of Murder and Memory In Northern Ireland

The problems of Northern Ireland, have declined sharply since the accords of the 90's, as well explained in the book. And I find it said that this progress may be shattered because of Brexit, which in my view was just nationalistic drum beating.

Read this a few months ago. It's seriously one of the best things I've ever read.

It's really hard for people here to grasp the depth of the hostilities behind the Troubles. And while it's split along religious lines, it's not really about religion at this point. Catholics have been oppressed forever in Northern Ireland and that was the genesis of the conflict. At this stage, though, there's no reconciliation possible, only a slight hold on peace, and a great chance the Brexit will destroy everything that's been done to stop the killing.

A bit of personal history: My grandfather was from Derry and emigrated in the 20s, when a whole lot of Irish Catholic men had to get the hell out or face prison or worse. My parents and I visited Derry in 1977 when I was ten years old. That was a particularly awful time for the Troubles. (We got there in a rental car on a ferry from Scotland. When we arrived at night we were out of gas, no hotel and no way to contact family. We spent the night in the car in a gas station parking lot. Our family there was astonished we survived the night.)

I have no idea what my grandfather was involved in, but this is probably some indication: when were were there in '77 we had tea at the home of one of the leaders of the IRA, who invited us because of my grandfather... who was dead and had left 50 years earlier. There is now a football stadium named for my grandfather in the area. There's a hell of a story there, but my mom doesn't seem to know much of it -- I'm trying to learn more about him, but it's not something people talk about and his contemporaries are now gone.

Bottom line: the Republicans (the IRA/Catholic side) are never, ever backing down on the fight for independence and proper treatment from the British government. The Unionists are not going to back down, at this point largely because they refuse to cede a victory to tactics used by the IRA and its variations. They achieved a tenuous peace that lasted remarkably long, all things considered. I suspect Brexit will destroy that in the very near future.

 

[Shropshire Slasher]

I was on a cruise of the British Isles about 15 years ago and one of the stops was Belfast
We went down the streets where the graffiti still is on the houses
A guy I worked with who was from Boston told me he knew plenty of bars back in the day where there was a pot above the cash register for contributions to the IRA

I have firsthand knowledge of this from the early 1990s. Then as now, I'm highly skeptical one red cent found its way to the Emerald Isle.

 

[PCLoadLetter]

I was on a cruise of the British Isles about 15 years ago and one of the stops was Belfast
We went down the streets where the graffiti still is on the houses
A guy I worked with who was from Boston told me he knew plenty of bars back in the day where there was a pot above the cash register for contributions to the IRA

That's historically been a serious problem there: constant funding from Irish-Americans who have somehow fetishized the violence and insist on funding it. They love the bombings as long as they're happening on another continent.

 

[2muchcoffeeman]

As an atheist, its with wonderment that I read about the history of the conflicts between Catholics and Protestants in Ireland/Northern Ireland. I literally channel Rodney King and say "can't you just get along?"

The roots go back 400 years.

Plantation of Ulster - Wikipedia